Join our collaboration on urban sustainability transformations

Are you an Utrecht University researcher involved in research on sustainability transformations of cities or would you like to get involved? Would you like to know who else at Utrecht University is working in this field and are you interested in collaborating with them? Then please join the Transforming Infrastructures for Sustainable Cities hub online on Thursday 18 June. The hub will widen its scope and invites you to explore the options for your collaboration on transforming cities towards sustainability.

Supported by a continuous call for seed funding the Transforming Infrastructures for Sustainable Cities hub invites colleagues at Utrecht University to explore and co-create sustainable solutions for cities. We intend to bring together and build bridges between researchers working on urban sustainability transformations from across Utrecht University’s faculties. As a community we want to catalyse research that connects us to stakeholders in transdisciplinary settings. Working with societal stakeholders on the sustainability challenges of our time is at the heart of all hubs of Utrecht University’s strategic theme Pathways to Sustainability.

We invite you to become part of our community working on urban sustainability transformations, and to join us in setting the agenda for the hub. Therefore, we organise a first university-wide meeting on urban sustainability transformations.

Join the online meeting

If you’re interested, please join our online gathering on Thursday 18 June at 13h30. This gathering will give you the opportunity to:

• Meet colleagues from different disciplines with shared and complementary interests
• Discuss avenues for future research on urban sustainability transformations
• Discover the breadth of research at Utrecht University
• Explore possibilities for collaboration through our seed funding

Please let us know if you’d like to attend the meeting and/or are interested in the hub’s activities by filling out this form. If you are interested but not working at Utrecht University, please send us an e-mail. 

We would like to create an overview of the Utrecht University community working on all aspects of urban sustainability transformations and (if you agree) share your expertise on our website. We kindly ask you to fill out the questions in the form.

We hope to see you on 18 June!

Initial focus: transforming infrastructures

Developing sustainable cities strongly depends on infrastructures that provide energy, water, mobility, waste and communication services. Within the Transforming Infrastructures for Sustainable Cities hub we have been establishing a research platform over the last three years, focusing on understanding how we envision, identify and mobilise pathways to cities and infrastructures of the future.

Since 2018 five postdocs have addressed this question with stakeholders around the globe. They have explored, refined and tested different transformative approaches: futuring, experimentation, cross-domain governance, assessment and co-design. Through our seed funding, we have supported several projects with colleagues from different faculties. First additional third-party funded projects have started their work and several project applications are underway. The focus of the hub will now be broadened to urban sustainability transformations.